Whether you’re a working musician, have your own studio or just indulge in the guitar every now and then, the chances are you’ve had fun while playing a musical instrument.

As well as the enjoyment of playing music, learning an instrument actually has a whole host of other benefits.

Check out these nine reasons why everyone should learn to play an instrument.

1. Learning an instrument can help you build confidence, whether you’re a fully-grown adult or a shy child. Once you start to see yourself progress and get better at playing and understanding music, your confidence will increase.

2. Once you take up an instrument, it’s natural to seek out others that are also interested in music or learning the same instrument. That can be joining a group on social media or getting together with other students at your music school. Most musicians will at some point want to play with other musicians, further increasing their social circles.

3. There have been studies that show playing an instrument helps lower heart rate and blood pressure, helping you feel more relaxed. The act of concentrating can help distract you from a stressful situation that’s on your mind. I challenge anyone to not feel better after going mad on a drum kit for a few minutes.

4. It is incredibly rare for someone to sit down at an instrument for the very first time and be good at it. For many instruments, the first few steps can be the hardest, and getting to a level where you really feel like you can play takes patience, and patience is a great quality for anyone to have.

5. Both listening to music and playing an instrument can increase your memory according to research. Regularly playing an instrument can actually change the shape of your brain, exercising the areas that deal with motor skills, hearing and memory. Music education is also linked to higher IQ levels.

6. Following on from the last point, the act of learning an instrument can also improve maths skills. If you are learning to read music, you’ll be required to count notes and decipher rhythms; this all helps boost your maths skills.

7. Whether its drums, guitar, violin or flute, all musical instruments require some form of hand-eye coordination. While some instruments require you coordinate just your fingers, others require you to apply this to various limbs and even the way you breathe. Your increased coordination will help you with everything from holding your breath to catching a ball.

8. Looking a little deeper into coordinating your breathing, playing an instrument can actually enhance your respiratory system by giving it a good workout. If you learn any wind instrument, you’ll have to work on how to breathe in and expel air properly in order to make the correct sound, and be able to reach certain points in the music without running out of breath.

9. One of the best things, in my opinion, about leaning an instrument is having a greater understanding about cultural history. It’s very easy to just listen to the same types of bands that you really like, but when you learn an instrument, you’re required to listen to genres from various eras that you wouldn’t naturally spend time listening to. As you do this, you’ll start to get enthralled in the background and stories behind some of the different varieties of styles out there, from Jazz to folk to punk and beyond.

Source: www.mi-pro.co.uk